Learning: How do we enhance it?

In US and in many of the countries in the world, the academic gap between affluent and poor kids is widening. This is what attracted me to start volunteering my time to bridge the digital divide between the affluent and poor kids. As I started volunteering, being a novice in teaching and in learning theories, quickly realized that learning is not just about the learning of knowledge. Having been trained in engineering with very little humanities study, decided to take the time to learn more about the different aspects of learning and enrolled in What Future for Education, a Coursera Course being taught by Dr. Clare Brooks. 

With respect to my own experience as a learner, I have learnt to know and to do in schools, whereas my learning to live together and to be came from my parents, friends and society. Based on my experience as a learner, I am excited to learn via the Coursera Course, as it helps combine the class room with students from all over the world. I am excited and looking forward to learning from the guided episodes as well as through the thoughts, comments and experiences from other students participating in this course. 

Having gone through the first week and spending time on "How does one learn", I have already learnt a lot. Learning encompasses a wider field: Learning to know, Learning to do, Learning to live together and Learning to be. Teachers, curriculum developers and administrators should appreciate this fact and structure the learning environment based on this approach. It was also very illuminating to learn about the impact of students background in their learning and the different ways in which they learn. Current teaching / schooling is largely based on "normalization". Current teacher to students ratio hardly enables the attention / tuning that is needed for different students, be it their learning style or the impact of their social background on their learning. 

As I go through the next 5 weeks of the "What Future for Education" course, I am hoping to learn on ways we can help address the resource issues on enabling customized education. How can we have the benefit of teachers as facilitators and yet tailor the learning experience based on the needs of children? In what ways can we weave in both "learning to live together" and "learning to be" with those of  "learning to know" and "learning to do" ? 

As we move from more traditional approach to constructivist approach, I believe the order of instruction can be changed. Currently, in most of the schools, theoretical aspects are discussed first and then this followed by select experiments. Rather than this, I think it will be better to start with an experiment, where a group of students will work together, and derive the natural laws themselves. This will help in creating a curiosity bug in students minds. 

On Learning

How does one learn? How did I learn? I started a journey in time, a journey to my past, starting from my school days, thinking about my successful and unsuccessful learning experiences. 

One factor that had certainly influenced my learning a subject was the passion with which my teacher taught. Be it Mathematics, Chemistry or Tamil, I spent more time on subjects that were taught by passionate teachers and that had a lasting impression and influence on my career and profession. 

The other factor that kept me engaged, and on my toes while learning, was the informal challenging quiz or question during the class. This sort of questioning made me apply what I just learnt to a new situation needing a solution. I found that this sort of exercise helped in my learning to stick. In a similar way, in Mathematics, I found that applied or word problems helped me understand the concepts much more than straight application of rules. 

I also found that I had been successful in learning subjects where I can apply reasoning or logic to arrive at a solution rather than the ones that are based on rules. 

With respect to the situation that lead me to unsuccessful learning, I can think of two situations. I was trying to learn another language without any immersion. Basically, the learning style was to memorize the words and answer questions. I did not go very far on this one.

The other instance I was unsuccessful in learning happened when I tried to learn swimming as an adult. During one of the classes, I drowned and my fear kept me under water for a long time (at least, it felt that way), until the teacher pulled me out. Since that day, the fear of water had kept me away from learning how to swim. As an extension, I guess fear is one of the factors that block me from my learning. 

How was your experience? What helped you to learn successfully? What lead to your unsuccessful learning? Please share your thoughts.